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MEATLESS MEALS

Many indigenous cuisines— from Asian and
Mediterranean to Latin and African—have their roots in flavorful, nutritious plant
food traditions.

Inspire your clients’ plant-based eating
style with meatless dishes from around the world.

Plant-based eating definitely is in
vogue. In fact, it’s on track as one of this year’s biggest food trends,
including New Hope Natural Media’s “Top 5 Natural Food Trends.” A consumer survey from Mintel indicated
that while only 7% of Americans identify themselves as vegetarian, 36% buy meat
alternatives, and 51% of adults believe meat alternatives are healthier than
real meat. Actually, 31% of grocery shoppers claim to be trying to reduce their
meat consumption.

You can thank programs such as Meatless
Monday, which encourages consumers to go meatless just one day per week for
environmental and health benefits, as well as USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines
and MyPlate, which emphasize loading up at least three-quarters of your plate
with plant foods, for encouraging a focus on plant-based meals no matter a
person’s eating style. After all, there are documented benefits from eating a
plant-based diet.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’
position paper on vegetarian diets, which is based on an independent and systematic
review of the research on vegetarian diets, concluded

that well-planned vegetarian diets are
healthful and nutritionally adequate for people throughout all stages of life.

The position paper also reported that
vegetarian diets have several health advantages, including lower blood
cholesterol and blood pressure and a decreased risk of heart disease,

Their benefits go beyond health, too,
since plant-based diets are compassionate and leave a smaller carbon footprint,”
says Ginny Messina, MPH, RD, who blogs at TheVeganRD.com and is the author of Vegan
for Life and Vegan for Her.

Cultivating
a Plant-Based Eating Style

One of the most intriguing facets of
plant-based diets is that they can be traced back to traditional dietary
patterns from around the world. Most indigenous, nonindustrialized diets, which depend on locally grown
or foraged foods and few processed ingredients, are based on plants. These
traditional dietary patterns evolved over centuries and were influenced by food
availability, the introduction of new foods, religion, and society.
Commonalities may be seen among indigenous diets, including the presence of
legumes, whole grains, regional fruits

and vegetables, nuts, spices, and herbs.
In fact, these plant foods typically form the backbone of many traditional
diets.

For example, if you were enjoying a
traditional meal in Japan, your meal would probably include fish, tofu, rice,
vegetables in a variety of forms—pickled, steamed, or fried—and

green tea. If you were dining in India,
where roughly 35% of the population is vegetarian, you might feast on many
flavorful vegetable dishes featuring peas, lentils, eggplant, potatoes,

peas, okra, tomatoes, rice, and dozens
of herbs and spices.

And if you traveled to West Africa, the
food vendors likely would offer you chili peppers, tomatoes, peanuts, corn,
cassava, black-eyed peas, okra, onions, millet, and various leafy

greens—foods at the core of their
regional diet.

One of the most famous plant-based
eating patterns, which has been related to health benefits based on hundreds of
studies, is the Mediterranean diet. The traditional eating pattern of

the countries surrounding the Mediterranean
Sea was characterized as a “poor man’s diet”; foods were obtained from the
environment, whether it was wild greens from the hills or

benefits of traditional diet patterns. Old ways has developed many traditional diet pyramids and programs, including the Mediterranean Foods Alliance, African Heritage & Health, and

Old ways Vegetarian Network.

Plant-based cuisines from across the
globe can inspire someone’s eating style with powerful nutrition and flavors.

“The nice thing about so many
traditional world cuisines is that they’re authentically plant based,” Messina
says.

“We don’t need to tweak them because so many of the most healthful and appealing cuisines, such as those associated with parts of Asia and the Mediterranean region, always have been built around plant foods. So when we explore that fun and very appealing ways of eating, we automatically reduce meat intake and start creating menus that are rich in vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds.”

Globally
Inspired Plant-Based Eating Tips

If you’re encouraging your clients to
eat more plant-based meals, offer up the world as inspiration. Some of the most
flavorful and authentic meatless dishes come from around the globe. Suggest
clients try these tips to add more inspiration to their plant-based meals:

• Borrow ideas from restaurants. One of the simplest ways to
introduce global plant-based flavors into the kitchen is by being adventurous
while dining out. Borrow flavor and ingredient ideas from classic restaurant
dishes, such as Vietnamese pho (noodle dish), Middle Eastern falafels,
Ethiopian vegetable stew with injera (teff bread), and Indian dal (simmered
peas) with basmati rice.

• Pay attention to core ingredients that are integral to
different types of cuisines and make it easy to create delicious, healthful
meals with or without recipes and with a minimum amount of work, Messina
suggests. “For example, many Mediterranean dishes start with onions and garlic
caramelized in good-quality olive oil. From there, you can add any vegetables and
beans you like with a few shakes of seasonings to come up with an easy dish
that uses whatever you have on hand,” she explains. “For an Asian influence,
use condiments and

spices such as ginger, tamari, or rice vinegar to the season tofu and any type of vegetables. And you can season any vegetables or beans with curry powder for the flavors of India. Again, it’s

about using the authentic flavors of
these cuisines to create easy dishes using whatever foods you enjoy.”

• Remember legendary combinations. Great food traditions are
born of flavorful combinations. For example, “Think of the tomato and bread
traditions of the Mediterranean;

they all feature tomatoes and bread, but
they include different herbs and spices,” Baer-Sinnott says. “Paximadia in
Greece with barley rusks, tomatoes, feta cheese, and oregano; bruschetta in
Italy with tomatoes, bread, mozzarella, and basil; pa amb tomàquet in
Catalonia with

tomatoes, garlic, and toast.”

• Don’t go easy on flavor. Being shy of flavor is one
thing you can’t say about most global cuisine, where cooks often have a heavy
hand when they apply herbs and spices. “Great flavor with herbs and spices is
something that plant-based food traditions around the globe have in common,”
Baer- Sinnott says. In fact, in its most recent Mediterranean Diet Pyramid,
Oldways added herbs and spices to reflect this culinary tradition.

• Think fresh, seasonal, and local. Traditional diets really are the original locavore diets. Out of necessity, people ate what could be grown or foraged locally, and they preserved their bounty for use during the lean times. This can be applied to diets today, with a return to seasonal, traditional plant ingredients, such as sauteed greens following the traditions of Africa and pumpkin and squashes in stews a la South America.

To help clients experience the bold
flavors and nutritional benefits of meatless meals from around the world, Today’sDietitian has provided the following samples of traditional recipes

Sharon Palmer, RD, is a plant-based
diet expert, the author of The Plant-Powered Diet and Plant-Powered
for Life, the editor of the Environmental Nutrition newsletter,
and a contributing editor at Today’s Dietitian. She enjoys
developing her own global culinary traditions in her home in Los Angeles.